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Eric Dayton, Philosophy Faculty

Improving Your Writing

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What is the difference between improving my essay and improving my writing?

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Clearly, in the context of the Writing Centre, your student comes in and says, "I have an essay [due] in three days," they're not going to become literate, if they're not presently literate, and so then they have... their task is a different task. It's not becoming literate, it's... Well, I gave you this example earlier about if you want to lose weight or if you want to become fit, you have to engage in a fairly long term endeavour, that involves discipline. That's quite different than wanting to be able to fit into your favourite dress for the party next weekend. A lot of people treat essay writing as something to be gotten out of the way rather than as an intrinsic part of their education. For people like that, the best task is to hire somebody to help them, because you're not really interested in learning that stuff.